On the Development of a Consistent Classification System for Octoechos Manuscripts

Abstract

This article presents a comparative analysis of established approaches to the typology of manuscript codices containing hymns of the Octoechos. It discusses certain problems inherent in individual methods of Octoechos classification, specifically those related to anachronism, incompleteness, and inconsistency in the selected schemas for systematizing surviving witnesses of the Octoechos manuscript tradition. The aim of this study is to reconcile diverse typological approaches and to develop a unified, coherent, and consistent system for describing the various types of Octoechos manuscripts. It is proposed to resolve certain terminological discrepancies by elimina­ting ambiguous or redundant terms, as well as by correcting or limiting the application of specific terms to the diversity of the Octoechos manuscript tradition. Describing the diversity of the medieval handwritten tradition of the liturgical book under consideration, it is necessary to abandon the modern conception of the terms Octoechos and Parakletike, which stems from conflating the titles of printed Greek liturgical books with their contents. In accordance with surviving manuscript witnesses regarding the titles of certain hymnographic codices, it is proposed to revise the term Sticherokathismatarion to Sticherokathistarion. The study demonstrates that such an adjustment alone to the known Octoechos typological systems is insufficient for developing a consistent and unequivocal classification system for manuscript codices. This demands the introduction of new principles of Octoechos typology and a distinction within the ma­nuscript corpus of Octoechos hymnography, both accor­ding to the types of hymn organization within the codices and according to the types of codices determined by their hymnographic contents. Such a two-tiered classification system for Octoechos manuscripts coherently and unequivocally describes the variety of the Greek and Slavonic Octoechos manuscript traditions. According to the system of hymn grouping within the codices, the Octoechoi are divided into genre (syste­matic), liturgical (cyclic), and combined types. According to the principle of dividing manuscript Octoechos codices by hymnographic content, the following are distinguished: the Great, Resurrectional, Ferial, and Selected Octoechos; as well as the Great and Small Parakletike; additionally, the Sticherokathistarion, the Theotokarion, and the Liturgical Hexaemeron (Sluzhebny Shestodnev). Within the proposed typology, the term Selected Octoechos designates a formerly widespread collection consisting of hymns from the Resurrectional Octoechos, ferial stichera and kathismata, and certain other hymns of the Octoechos. Conversely, manuscripts known in Slavonic archaeo­graphy as Selected Octoechos (Izborny Oktoikh) are predominantly classified within this system as Sticherokathistarion or Hexaemeron codices of the genre type.